Ethiopian Highlands Annual Review and Planning meeting

17-18 September 2012
Info centre break out room, ILRI Ethiopia, Addis Ababa
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Partnerships - how to find a fit with Africa RISING?

In this session, external participants joined the Africa RISING teams to work further one each phase of the research framework and then presented the results of their group work.

Summary:

• On situational analysis: build trust and legitimacy, focus on existing knowledge, identify farming constraints looking at farming systems, keep a flexible approach with a participatory focus, remain representative of the community, facilitate the process well.
• On integrated systems improvement: systems thinking is hard and requires diversity; Africa RISING is complementary to other USAid projects and considers natural resource management (albeit from some distance); it looks at crop-livestock-tree interactions, possibly following sequencing (e.g. legumes --> fertilizer trees --> maize --> livestock).
• On scaling and dissemination: We're looking at best practices based on tech inventory/capacity building/diagnostic; Scaling up remains a challenge (because we follow an integrated approach), country buy-in is critical, as is demand-driven approach but various activities could help such as brochures, farmer training centers, visits to model/best farmers, farmer field days etc.

• What are we scaling up/out?
  • Best practices (packages)
  • List of available but not validated technologies
• Activities:
  • Technology inventory (what where, why was it adopted or not)
  • Capacity building: Making the scaling up process more sustainable - but how?
  • Diagnostic (literature review and identifying gaps)
• Challenges of upscaling:
  • Integrated systems approach
  • Overall system improvement
    • Technologies,
    • Adoption
    • Collaboration with all stakeholders
• Approaches:
  • Country buy-in initiative: government plans and GP guidelines
  • Demand-driven - problems to be addressed should come from end users and go to them.
  • REFLAC: (research extension farmer linkage advisory council) would be a great platform to discuss plans and achievements
• Methods:
  • Brochures
  • Farmers' training centers
  • Models
  • Visits to model / best farmers
  • Decentralised farmer field days

Discussion:

Situation analysis and programme-wide synthesis

• The selection of woredas is based on dominant cropping system (20% wheat system)
• We want to have a participatory approach to identify indicators that fit the situation
• What is the output of the situation analysis? Get semi-homogeneous groups
• Farming system-based
• Farmers don't know what they don't know
• Whom do farmers listen to?
• Faming system practices
• Focus on existing knowledge
• How much on farming / off-farming (time)?
• Identify constraints to promotions (e.g. farmers telling us what we want) - avoid being prescriptive
• To build trust / relationship
• Participatory focus etc.
• How to include successful farmers in the intervention? Busy and successful farmers busy and difficult to get!
• Depends on your approach and facilitation
• DAs: are they part of the system?
• Flexible approach
• Representative of the community
• Facilitation is critical
• Access to technology (adoption)
• Enumerators ; how to prioritize ?
• Tools: FEAST, AKT5 software... Some of these tools can be used flexibly.

Integrated systems improvement

Starting points:

• Subsistence vs. market orientation
• Novel extension approaches

Discussion:

• Systems thinking is hard because of complex interactions
• This can be done at farm level but with reference to value chains
• It complements the Mission work on value chains
  • Work at the edge (represented in dashed ways) e.g. lots of existing work on aflatoxin won't replicate
  • Diversity? You can look at it obliquely but it's not a major emphasis of this project
  • QPM
• Good to share results of Quick Win projects
• The scope of the research project is deliberately limited:
  • Research-wise it is about 'farming systems integration'
  • Africa RISING complements nutrition, VC work of USAid mission
• What about NRM? Is it part of farming system integration? What about land degradation continuum and indicators related to it?
• The absence of NARS is a worry: there has been a lot of involvement in project development
• Crop-livestock interactions:
  • CA/livestock
  • Restricting livestock grazing
  • Pigeon pea on bunds - multiple uses
• Lack of emphasis on natural resource degradation
• Sequencing: legumes --> fertilizer trees --> maize --> livestock.
• We need to approach our projects in an integrated manner, looking at the different livelihood aspects mentioned above.

Scaling and delivery

• What are we scaling up/out?
  • Best practices (packages)
  • List of available but not validated technologies
• Activities:
  • Technology inventory (what where, why was it adopted or not)
  • Capacity building: Making the scaling up process more sustainable - but how?
  • Diagnostic (literature review and identifying gaps)
• Challenges of upscaling:
  • Integrated systems approach
  • Overall system improvement
    • Technologies,
    • Adoption
    • Collaboration with all stakeholders
• Approaches:
  • Country buy-in initiative: government plans and GP guidelines
  • Demand-driven - problems to be addressed should come from end users and go to them.
  • REFLAC: (research extension farmer linkage advisory council) would be a great platform to discuss plans and achievements
• Methods:
  • Brochures
  • Farmers' training centers
  • Models
  • Visits to model / best farmers
  • Decentralised farmer field days